22 Wednesday Sep 2021
Soon, these gorgeous Commas will be looking for places to hibernate.
But first they need to stock up on nectar, to increase their energy reserves to help them survive the cold winter months.
Brambles are perfect, their berries plentiful, widespread, easily accessible, juicy, delicious.
And, when the berries are very ripe and begin to ferment, butterflies like these Commas can become more than a little tipsy as they drink.
15 Wednesday Sep 2021
Remember yesterday’s The last Small copper?
Well, I wrote the first part of that post last week, then, a couple of days later, was dazzled by the glinting of another Small copper at a different location. Will there be more, I wonder?
14 Tuesday Sep 2021
Posted in insects
As I walk slowly along a narrow footpath between tall stands of meadowsweet and willowherbs, thistles and fleabane, I catch, out of the corner of my eye, a fleeting flash of orange, and quickly turn my head towards it, follow it, try desperately not to lose sight of it. I’m in luck. It settles, turns, opens its wings. And I don’t know whether to be overjoyed to see this most unexpected, glistening Small copper or saddened at the thought that this will, in all probability, be my last Small copper sighting of the year.
07 Tuesday Sep 2021
Butterflies are smart!
The Speckled wood may be a woodland butterfly, able to cope without as much sunshine as most butterflies need, but it still needs some heat. And, when the sun’s not shining, the warmest places in this area of local woodland are where the rides were recently cut and the grass clippings are beginning to decompose. I found seven Speckled woods in one very small area, all taking advantage of the heat of the rotting process.
17 Tuesday Aug 2021
Posted in insects, nature photography
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, Common blue butterfly, macro photography, Meadow Brown, practising macro photography, Speckled wood
I mostly use my Olympus camera for macro photographs, and to get crisp shots I need to get within an inch or two of the subject. As you can imagine, a lot of little creatures are alarmed by a large animal looming over them with a camera so, from time to time, I use one of my daily walks to practise my stealth. After a couple of false starts yesterday, I was very pleased to get up close to these three butterflies – a Common blue, a Meadow brown and a Speckled wood – as the macro photos give such good detail of the anatomy of these beautiful butterflies.
12 Thursday Aug 2021
Posted in insects
Tags
Adain garpiog, British butterflies, butterfly, C-falter, Comma, Comma butterfly, Robert-le-Diable
With the precision we can rely on from the Germans, the Comma is called the C-falter, the C butterfly. In France it is known as Robert-le-Diable, Robert the devil, which, according to a 2017 article in the Guardian newspaper, ‘is also the name of a favourite 19th-century Centifolia rose with a unique purple-cerise-scarlet-grey flower and a wonderful old rose fragrance; an 1831 opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer about the moral redemption of the son of a mortal and a demon; and the father of William the Conqueror, who was said to be the son of the Devil.’ Why the Comma also bears this name the Guardian writer does not specify. Here in Wales the Comma is appropriately named Adain garpiog, which translates as raggedy wing.
07 Saturday Aug 2021
Posted in insects
Tags
British butterflies, Brown argus, butterfly, butterflying, mud-puddling, puddling, the brown blue butterfly
According to my Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, William Lewin named this butterfly the ‘Brown blue’ in his 1795 publication The Papilios of Great Britain, but its current name comes from the earlier 1702 work Gazophylacium naturae et artis by James Pettiver, who gave it the name the ‘edg’d brown Argus’. The argus part of the Brown argus’s name comes from ‘the many-eyed shepherd of Greek mythology, which is a reference to the numerous spots on the butterfly’s underside’.
The beauties in my photos are from this year’s second generation of Brown argus, seen in two locations earlier this week. I only saw three of the first generation back in June as, like many local butterflies, their numbers were well down after a very wet spring. I’m hoping this second brood fares better.
I was interested, and just a little revolted, when I watched one of these Brown argus butterflies stocking up on nutrients, probably salts and amino acids, by slurping at a damp mixture of mud and horse pooh, an activity known as puddling or mud-puddling. Don’t try this at home!
04 Wednesday Aug 2021
Posted in insects
The second generation of Holly blue butterflies has now hatched and the males can be seen whizzing rapidly along the hedgerows and woodland ride edges in search of a mate. Fortunately, this one paused for a short time so I was able to get a few photos. For more information on their two annual broods and the switch from Holly to Ivy as their larval food plants, see my earlier post Holly blues, the second generation, August 2018.
31 Saturday Jul 2021
Posted in insects
Tags
aberrant butterfly, aberrant Gatekeeper, British butterflies, Gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus var. subalbida
This striking little Gatekeeper caught my eye during a recent walk. Instead of the vibrant orange hue usually seen in their wings (normal male colouring shown below), this little fellow’s colouring was a pale cream. Looking at the known variations for these butterflies on the UK Butterflies website, this appears to be the aberration subalbida.
28 Wednesday Jul 2021
Posted in insects
My walks in Casehill Woods delivered yet another delightful surprise on Monday, this stunning male Silver-washed fritillary.
I have, in fact, been looking for these butterflies in the Dinas Powys woodlands in recent weeks as this is the closest area to where I live that Silver-washed fritillaries were last seen on a regular basis. Though they were once recorded quite frequently in Cwm George woodland, none have been reported there since 2003. It seems to my untrained eye that the trees in Cwm George have grown too tall so the area no longer provides the sunlit rides and glades, the flourishing banks of nectar-rich brambles, thistles and other wildflowers, and the quantities of its larval food plant Common dog-violet that the Silver-washed fritillary needs to thrive.
Fortunately, this particular butterfly has discovered the younger Millennium woodland area of Casehill Woods, which caters exactly to his needs. Now, let’s hope this male can attract a female so that together they can build a new local population. Fingers crossed!
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